Waking Dream
by walked-into-the-sky
Summary: When Bobby Pendragon sleeps, he sees a woman with dark skin and strong eyes. Post SoH.


Disclaimer: Don't own Pendragon. Hope that sets the record straight.

SoH spoilers, turn around if you don't want to read them.

Begin

When Bobby Pendragon sleeps, he sees a woman with dark skin and strong eyes.

She's beautiful, that's the first thing he always notices about her. And she's changing, aging, like him. As he grows older, moves from his teenage years to his mid twenties, early thirties, forties, fifties, she follows him. There's something highly familiar about her too.

The first time he saw her in his head was the night he and the Stony Brook Junior High basket ball team had won the state championship thrilling game. He and his best friend Mark Dimond had celebrated at the Garden Poultry afterwards, though Courtney Chetwynde had pulled him aside before he had left and had blessed him with a kiss that was even better than the first they had shared earlier that evening. And later, when he finally returned home to eat ice cream with his parents and his little sister, Shannon, he had been exhausted. He had literally fallen asleep the second his head had hit the pillow.

And then, without any fireworks, or drama, or anything else you'd expect from a dream after what had to be the biggest night of Bobby's life so far, she appeared. Just appeared, just like that. The woman with the strong eyes and that strangely gentle expression. And he knew her. He knew he knew her. He just wasn't sure from where.

They didn't talk. For some reason, he didn't feel the need to even try, despite the nagging in the back of his head that she was important, to him, to his life, to everything, somehow. And she just looked at him, the ghost of a smile curling her lips, her fingers folded in front of her. It was comforting, somehow.

The next day the image was sort of burned into the backs of his eyelids, but he didn't think much of it as he clapped Mark on his shoulder, walked hand in hand with Courtney to class, and lived his life.

Of course, it didn't worry him that she kept appearing, night after night, never missing his dreams and always staying there, staring at him, until morning.

Time passed. He went to high school, he played basket ball, he and Courtney broke up, yet remained good friends, and he went to college. He made the impulsive decision to go against his parents' wishes that he would become a lawyer. He wrote instead, stories about the world, about life, about reality. In some ways it was because it made him happy. In others, others that he would never admit to, not even to Mark, it was because he was slowly becoming addicted to a fantasy.

He dreamt of her every single night. And on hard days, _only hard, bad days_, he sort of longed for her. She was a rock for him, her calm, gentle gaze that hid behind that brave façade he had come to know so well. And her silence was a welcome peace from the roars and demands of the world. She helped him in ways even he did not understand. Gave him his confidence. Gave him his peace. In a lot of ways he needed her and he knew it wasn't healthy, fixating on a dream the way he was.

So, when he went to L.A., ran into the beautiful Courtney Chetwynde, and it was clear she wanted to rekindle their romance, he jumped on the chance. Because Courtney was _real_ and the girl with the dark skin and powerful stare was _not_. And he needed a tangible, loving presence in his life, not a silent figment of his imagination. So he dated Courtney, in pieces at first and then more frequently. They became damn near inseparable. He moved to California for her.

Bobby had assumed, when their relationship became serious, the woman's appearances would begin to decrease.

He had never been more wrong about something in his entire life.

She began to smirk at him, mocking him with her eyes, as though she knew what he was trying to do and she knew, just as well as he did, that it was kind of pathetic.

The first time he and Courtney had sex, he could have sworn the girl laughed at him, but the next morning he was sure he had imagined it.

The truth was that Bobby did love Courtney, more than anyone on Earth. That was precisely why he asked her to marry him and precisely why she, with a glowing smile and tears shining in her gray eyes, said yes. The woman didn't laugh at him this time. In fact, she sort of frowned at him that night, piercing him with the power of her look.

And she continued frowning, glaring, scowling, whatever you wanted to call it, until on the night of his wedding eight months later, Bobby Pendragon finally got fed up.

Shocking both himself and her, he bit out the words, "Who the hell are you?" the second her ever present image appeared in his sleep that night. And she stared at him, still silent, although now it looked like she was at a loss for words. And they stood there like that, challenging each other with their gazes, until the woman finally made a move.

To his shock, the smile returned and it was larger and more beautiful and comforting than ever.

"It doesn't matter, Bobby," she said softly, gently, and anger boiled up faster than he could really keep up with. He did note, however, that her voice sounded just as he had always imagined it would.

"What do you mean it doesn't matter? I've seen you in my head for years and you don't have the decency to tell me who you are?" he snarled. She continued to smile.

"It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that it's too much for you to understand."

His mouth opened stupidly, then closed just as quickly as he continued to battle with that knowing gaze.

"Do I know you?" he asked finally, although he didn't really expect a response.

That smile grew and the woman shrugged, "Bobby, all you really need to know is that I'm someone you refuse to forget."

And, despite the fact that it created more questions than answers, this reply relaxed him in a strange sort of way. Bobby gazed at her, digging through every bit of his consciousness he could reach, trying to place a connection. Seeming to catch onto this strange behavior, the woman chuckled, "Don't bother, you won't find it."

"Will you tell me? I mean, someday?" he almost pleaded. A shadow of a nervous look crossed her face.

"Someday," she said carefully, as though she was having trouble finding the right words, "I won't need to."

Someday. He sat down hard on the endless gray expanse that always surrounded them, his eyes on his hands as he twisted them in his lap. When was someday? In a week? Months? Years? A lifetime?

"Yes," she answered his unspoken question evenly and he looked up into that beautiful, haunting face again.

"I guess I'll just have to learn to be patient," he sighed and she grinned.

"I guess you will."

They never really talked again. Although, when he thought about it, they didn't really need to. He just had to live. To live.

And to wait.

--

_Okay, it's not that I hate Bobby/Courtney. And it's not like I wrote this to suggest he's cheating on her with a dream or anything creepy like that. I mean, I can see that Bobby would love her, especially after the scene in Blackwater that created one of my all time favorite quotes from the series:_

_Courtney: Just promise me something._

_Bobby: What?_

_Courtney: When this is over, remember me._

_I'm just saying that Bobby was too close to Loor for him to just forget. And…you know, that quote (points) sort of inspired this, just in a sort of twisted way. Instead of having to remember Courtney, he has to remember Loor. And, you know, the whole "Loor glares at him after he proposes to Courtney?" I like to think it came from his guilty conscious, because he never tells any of them, not Mark, not Courtney, about the mysterious woman he sees in his head. So. There it is. Read and review. Just…don't be too hateful, my self confidence is very fragile._


End file.
